In The New Zealand Initiative's Better Education Project, I am looking at how policy levers interact and affect the quality of teaching in schools. Teacher training and qualifications, or Initial Teacher Education (ITE), is one policy area of promise. Read more
Click image for larger view. Read more
Last Thursday night, former Australian Prime Minister Hon John Howard spoke at The New Zealand Initiative's inaugural retreat in Auckland. Below is an edited excerpt of his speech in which shared his views on think tanks and how they influenced him during his time as a politician. Read more
Manufacturers and exporters have been complaining about the high Kiwi dollar for a long time. Opposition politicians are openly toying with the idea of changing the Reserve Bank’s mandate to manipulate the exchange rate downwards. Read more
Will it be Rudd or Gillard? The Australian Labor government’s fortunes are at an all-time low; Prime Minister Julia Gillard has emerged victorious; and the most talented and respected members of her cabinet have resigned. Read more
Click image for larger view.
Read more
Last night, former Australian Prime Minister Hon John Howard OM AC spoke to guests of the Initiative on 'Trans-Tasman Relations in the Pacific Century'. Today we have an excerpt from our chairman's welcome speech, and next week we will publish an excerpt from Mr Howard's speech. Read more
It’s break time in an all-male office. The boys gather around a window to watch a gorgeous woman outside seductively pop open a bottle of soda and show off her stunning figure. Read more
The election of Argentinian Cardinal Jose Mario Bergoglio to the papacy may not matter much to non-Catholics. But the public’s reaction to Pope Francis’ display of humility has a lot to say about our times. Read more
When I last wrote about Cyprus, the eurozone faced a political and economic dilemma in its smallest member state (The spectre protecting a sinful little Cyprus, January 24). With last weekend’s bailout, Europe’s politicians have once again managed to make a bad situation worse. Read more
If you filled in your census forms last week, you would have had to answer question number 13: "In which language(s) could you have a conversation about a lot of everyday things?" The wording of the question is clumsy. I wonder how our statisticians define ‘a lot of’, what they mean by ‘everyday’, and whether ‘things’ could have been more specific. Read more
Driving around Houston, Texas, several things strike you immediately: the number of pickup trucks, the proliferation of ‘Nobama’ bumper stickers, and the widest freeways. Houston is in many ways a typical post-War city. Read more
On Wednesday, Labour MP Louisa Wall’s private members bill passed its second reading in Parliament. If passed into legislation, the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill will allow same-sex couples to marry. Read more
While it was still busy sorting out the mess that is the European economy, the European Commission last week could at least score a small victory: it issued a €561 million fine to Microsoft for breaching undertakings given in the software giant’s long-running antitrust dispute with the EU. The new fine brings Microsoft’s total contribution to the EU budget over the years to a total of €2.2 billion. Read more